#57: The Gentle Storm - The Diary#13 for 2015
The funny thing about this album... I got it shortly after it came out, listened to one version or the other for about two weeks, and then abruptly stopped listening to it and haven't touched it since, almost a year ago now. And it's not like it's bad, but it's just...
God, Arjen sure knows how to suck the life out of interesting instrumentation. I thought that his music having a kind of lifeless sound in general was just because he did a lot with synths and distorted guitars, and in some cases that was the point. But I'm pretty sure this album isn't intending to sound lifeless, yet... it does, quite a lot. Not all the time, certainly, there are still songs that have some life in them. Shores of India and The Storm especially, but Endless Sea sounds pretty good too. But end the end, if music like this sounds lifeless, it's boring. Plain and simple.
Anneke is a decent vocalist but if I'm gonna be honest, I've never been a huge fan of her, not on Arjen's previous stuff, not on Devin Townsend's stuff with her, and not on this album either. She's very technically sound but her voice never seems to be particularly emotive, or at least always sounds quite dry to me. She's good on the same tracks that have more alive instrumentation, and drier on the more boring songs.
I also think the decision to have two different version of the same album is, while novel, mostly just a gimmick in the end. I don't see why Arjen couldn't have just picked one or the other and put together a full album of those, or maybe a mixture of both the gentle and storm sounds on each track. Instead of segregating it into one or the other, just have them both at the same time. Your fanbase is going to be fine with that, Arjen, didn't you learn anything from the Universal Migrator albums?
This isn't helped by the fact that a lot of these songs aren't even that different on one version or the other. Endless Sea is good in both versions but the Storm version is literally just a heavier version of the Gentle version. The Greatest Love, The Storm, Eyes of Michiel, and New Horizions are all not notably different between the two versions aside from heavier instrumentation on the Storm version, which doesn't really transform the songs that much.
There are certainly some tracks where there's a big difference, though usually it's because one of the versions isn't as exciting as the other. The Moment most notably, the Gentle version just doesn't have enough weight to it and the Storm version blows it out of the water completely. On the other hand, the laid-back, jazzy vibe of the Gentle version of Heart of Amsterdam is completely lost on the Storm version, though there's at least a decent bass groove substituted in.
Two songs where both versions are equally good yet still quite different are Shores of India and Cape of Storms, most notably on each song's chorus. The chorus of the Gentle versions on these songs are very quiet and pretty, the most subtle parts of the songs. And on the Storm version, the choruses are both explosive and intense. It's a cool contrast between the two, and probably the only case where both versions are equally valid while still having their own identities.
A fair number of the songs, especially those on the back half of the disc, really don't have much that make them stand out from the rest, though. Endless Sea, while I do like it as an opener, doesn't have a lot of unique flavor, nor does The Moment, the "ballad" of the album, but they at least have more than The Greatest Love, Eyes of Michiel, Brightest Light, New Horizons, or Epilogue. Really, at the end of the day only four of these tracks are that special, and naturally, yes, these four are the best tracks. The rest is just the same sound repeated across half the album.
The Storm stands out mostly for having far more energy than any other track on the album; there's a nice frantic feel to both versions that creates a lot of tension and makes the song a fun listen. That's really about where the album ends though, since the last four tracks on both disc are really redundant by the time they roll around, none of them have anything to add. Considering that you have to listen to them all twice to get through the album once... yeah, really easy to get sick of them.
Honestly, at the end of the day, this isn't an awful album. But it was a bad idea from inception. No, Arjen, two discs doesn't make the album twice as good. Pick and choose the better versions of each track next time and put together one really good, interesting album, instead of two decent ones. It's definitely unique in Arjen's category for the total lack of synths alone, as well as the very pure sound of the Gentle disc, but it may be my least favorite Arjen release to date, at least of the ones I've heard.
Favorite Tracks: Shores of India (Both), The Storm (Both), Cape of Storms (Both), Endless Sea(Storm), Heart of Amsterdam (Gentle)
Least Favorite Tracks: Eyes of Michiel (Both), Brightest Light (Gentle), The Greatest Love (Both)
5.75/10DTF Addendum:
Yeah, this one... is just really frustrating for me. Maybe there's a good album in here somewhere but I've kind of given up on liking Anneke at this point, her voice is inoffensive at best and boring at worst. I think an issue I overlooked here is that this just doesn't hold up on relistens - especially with listening to both versions and thus getting really tired of the song's main melodies and arrangements. I got tired of this pretty dang fast and basically didn't spin it again for almost a year until I got around to relistening for the review.
Topic: Parama's 2015 Retrospective List: #1: I'm Not Sorry For That At All (Read 30849 times)